Recap: Raptors see opportunity and pounce

The Celtics fall to the lowly Raptors tonight, 84-79 in Toronto. An extremely frustrating loss. The C's were up by 13 points about halfway through the 2nd after a Ryan Hollins free-throw made it 30-17. Then they virtually disappeared. They did what we've seen them do in past games like this-made a "too little, too late" run in the final minutes of the 4th. But it came up short and the C's start off their "back-to-back-to-back" with a loss.

Not exactly a pretty 1st-half (or game) for either team. The Raptors shot an absolutely putrid 23% (9 of 39) and had 0 fastbreak points. The C's started off looking pretty good on offense- mainly behind Bass and Avery Bradley. But things got ugly in the 2nd quarter. They could only muster 6 points over the last 7:37 of the 1st half. The C's also got outrebounded 28-18 overall and 9-2 on the offensive glass. The Raps got a ton of second-chance points and were only down 36-30 going into halftime. I was not impressed.

The C's continued to get out rebounded and out hustled in the 2nd half as well. The Raps fans eventually got into the game, and the Raps snatched up an opportunity to beat an upper-echelon team. The C's lost the battle of the boards, 50 to 37, and were a terrible 4 of 19 from downtown. They very rarely took the ball in the paint and were not aggressive in transition. Rondo, as Mike Gorman put-it was "in passing-mode." KG finally cooled-off-Big Ticket was 5 of 16 from the floor and was double and even tripled-teamed at times by Dwayne Casey's defense. Paul Pierce barely eclipsed Lina Kleiza's 17 to lead all scorers with 18.

What frustrates me most about a loss like this? The other teams in the playoff/seeding hunt in our conference took care of business tonight; Indy destroyed the Cavs and the Hawks beat-up on Orlando. I guess in the "grand scheme" of things this game doesn't mean much, but it's still embarrassing and hard as a fan to justify an effort like this one. C's now head to Jersey to face a Nets team that has won 3 of their last 4 and went into Philly and beat a struggling, but good Sixers team. If you're interested in stats and such from tonight, you'll find them below.

I saw the final score, went to the box expecting to see DNP-Old next to KG and Pierce.. what the hell happened here? I thought they were done with the playing down crap.

http://profile.typepad.com/andreas24x7 Andreas24x7

Rondo happened…pathetic effort by him. Set no temp..crawled up and down the court at the Raptors pace. He should have been given the night off since he clearly didn’t want to play.

Alex

This…
The Celtics are absolute trash when Rondo isn’t scoring anything (penetrating the paint) and solely going for assists.
Also, Paul Pierce apparently no longer can hit the easiest of wide open jumpshots.

http://profile.typepad.com/redsarmy Red’s Army

They all took the night off…. you can’t single one guy out

Quest

The critique is the Heat and Bulls will out last the C’s in a 7 game playoff series by just wearing C’s down on their older legs. After tonights game it makes you wonder that this is may be truer than I want to believe.

Alex

Okay dude… they had FOUR games against playoff teams… in a row… and they won every single one of them. It’s fine for them to take a day off I guess. It sucks they had to let this one go but I doubt it has anything to do with tired legs.
Stop being one of those typical idiots that goes debbie downer after a single loss. Jeez.

http://profile.typepad.com/redslovechild1 Redslovechild

One horrible quarter cost them the game.
After 3 weeks {11 games} of solid performances…they`re entitled to a “stinker”.

http://profile.typepad.com/lobbe Caterpillar from Italy

I thought they were done with this crap, it was just embarrassing.
Is Toronto so nice to hang around? Because every time Celtics travel there, it seems to be for a holiday.
We know C’s can’t be the arrogant, lazy team that played last night, but they can’t be the perfect basketball machine like the one that won in Miami either. So it’s a good team that has to play his ass off every night in order to make up for the atrocious beginning of this regular season.
I hope Rondo is done with the statistics bs, so he can get back to play and shoot whenever it’s time to shoot.
Oh, and by the way: did they check next week schedule?

http://profile.typepad.com/amightymind A_mighty_mind

Phila and NYC 3 games behind. 7 games to go for each team.
Phila has a quite ok schedule but can’t buy a win (Orlando, Indiana, Cleveland, Indiana, New Jersey, Milwaukee, Detroit)
NY has a much tougher one (Miami, Boston, New Jersey,Cleveland, Atlanta, LA Clippers, Charlotte)
Boston : New Jersey, Charlotte, New York, Orlando, Atlanta, Miami, Milwaukee.
= We need to win the nxt 3 games.

http://profile.typepad.com/andreas24x7 Andreas24x7

You can single someone out..you point out how Rondo has a hand in every play when they win..well he also has a hand in every play when they lose. When one player controls the ball for 80% of the game when they play bad it is 100% on him..just like a QB in football.